Make Your Emergency Fund More Useful By Tying It To A Long-Term Goal

Make Your Emergency Fund More Useful By Tying It To A Long-Term Goal

Your emergency fund is supposed to bail you out in unexpected emergencies. Once you’ve saved three to six months’ worth of expenses though, it can seem like that money is just sitting around collecting dust.

Picture: StockMonkeys.com/Flickr

Make it more emotionally rewarding, Academy Success says, by giving it a purpose:

Allocate that emergency money as a contributor towards a very large secondary long-term goal, something that you’re not going to hit for quite a while and something you don’t necessarily need, but would be really nice for your lifestyle to accomplish. This goal should also cost a lot more than you need for financial emergencies, so think big.

This could be paying off your mortgage early, taking a bucket list trip around the world, or retiring 10 years earlier than planned.

By tying any extra money you save beyond the basic amount needed for emergencies, it’s psychologically easier to have that money sitting around, and you might be less tempted to spend it.

Of course, if you invest the “excess” money in the stock market, you’ll probably earn more interest. But this strategy is for when the emergency money just sitting there bugs you, and, who knows, you might just reach that secondary goal more easily as well.

How to Create an Actually Useful Financial Emergency Fund [Academy Success]


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